"Rudy has gone missing?!' Maria exclaimed.
After getting a phone call from the girls, Maria and Ruby stopped their shopping spree and went straight to the pool house. Reina, Angelica, and Lilim were already present there with the vampire gang.
While Alice was connected with them through a phone call.
"Aren't you all freaking out a little too much? Rudy is not a kid," Angelica stated. "So what if we can't find his whereabouts. This is the first time he has done this, right? Maybe he is busy with something.
He is the strongest being. We should rather worry about the place or the person he has gone for. Let's just wait for him to return. There is no need to panic."
Rebecca and Lucy were at the house, but they weren't worried for some reason.
"Maybe he is at the castle he recently bought?" Lilim wondered. "Perhaps, he went to check the progress of the renovation? Let me ask Belala."
Lilim called Lu Bela, and her call was answered with, [Did you find him?]
"No. Uhm… I was wondering if maybe he is at the castle?"
[He is not. Because I am there. I have been here, keeping an eye on the progress. And I haven't seen him since the day of the auction."
"Okay…" Lilim's voice has lost all energy.
[I will search for him using my advanced device and let you know if I find him.]
"Hmm. Thanks."
The girls looked at each other's faces in worry. Sure, they knew nothing could happen to Rudy, but it was natural for lovers to worry about their significant other.
"All we can do is wait…"
Niti glanced around the room and asked, "Where is Princess Rias?"
They all looked around and outside the pool house but couldn't find Rias.
"She was here with us a while ago."
Rias had gone to search for Rudy, and after searching for a few minutes, she found him sitting on a cloud high above the sky.
She approached him from behind and asked, "What are you doing here?"
"How did you find me?" Rudy asked without turning around. "Did you set a tracker on me?"
"No. But this was the only cloud standing out from others in the sky. Don't call it a wild guess because it took me a few minutes to find you."
Rudy tapped his hand beside him and said, "Sit."
Rias sat beside Rudy and rested her head on his shoulder. She looked at the moon and the starry sky, which was much more detailed and clear from there.
She didn't ask him again and waited for his reply.
A few seconds later, Rudy released a soft sigh and opened his mouth to mutter, "Everyday… I make some time to search around the world, search around the web on the internet, look through physical documents… but I can't find her."
"...Elise..?"
"Hmm. It takes me roughly 15 minutes to travel the world. I go into space at a safe distance and use my vision ability to scan the planet, 10% at a time.
Elise didn't use social media in the world, so it was highly unlikely for her to use it in this world. Still, I searched through the web, but I couldn't find her. I tried searching for her picture, maybe her friend took a selfie with her and posted it on social media, or perhaps she photobombed someone else's picture.
But the results were negative. I hacked into the world's government system to find her data, but she isn't listed on any document. If someone is born, they make a birth certificate, which is saved in the country's database.
But she is… not there. I do this daily, hoping to find a lead, but…"
"What about her family?" Rias asked calmly without lifting her head from Rudy's shoulder. "Did she have siblings?"
"She has a brother and three sisters."
"You have already tried finding them as well, right?'
"Yeah… no clue…"
"What about her parents?"
"Her father had died when she was a kid. And… I don't know anything about her mother. We never personally met or talked face to face. I have only seen her in a picture.
We only talked on the phone during Elise's treatment."
"Maybe… you will find her when you are supposed to?"
"I can't wait for that long."
"..." Rias didn't know what to say to reassure him.
The moment soon turned awkward, filled with silence.
"What if…" Rudy paused for a second before continuing, "What if she is not in this world?"
"That's not possible. Why would that happen? Everything is the same as it was in that world. You didn't change anything that would directly interfere with Elise or something related to her."
Rudy shook his head and gulped down.
"That's… not what I meant. There was something that wasn't in that world."
"Oh… the apocalypse…" Rias' eyes widened in realization.
"What if… Elise… died in that apocalypse…?"
"I wouldn't give you false hope and just say that it's totally possible."
"..."
"But if that truly happened, what can you do? You can't bring back the dead."
Rudy looked at his hand and said, "When I killed Asura, I got his power of the void. He spent hundreds of thousands of years trying to find the first reality— which he was sure had the power of time.
So all I have to do is find the first reality, get the power of time, and change everything. If I can control time freely, I can bring back the dead and kill the living."
"Are you planning to become another Asura?" Rias asked with a judging look on her face. "Please don't waste your life achieving something you have no knowledge of. You are going to seek something while your lover seeks you, your attention, and your love."
"..."
"Keep in mind that your actions can affect us. So think twice before making a decision about your future actions. Even now, they all are worried."
"Hmm?" Rudy looked at Rias with a confused look on his face and asked, "Why?"
"Apparently, you are missing."
"What…? I have only been here for like… thirty minutes or so."
"Well, then, this is the best live example for what I was talking about." She held his hand and said, "Come. Let's go."
